Adam Rubenstein, the New York Times (NYT) employee who edited Republican Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton’s “Send in the Troops” op-ed, reportedly resigned this week.
Cotton’s piece, published in June, prompted swift and aggressive backlash from employees at the paper who alleged that it put “Black NYT staff in danger.” Former opinion editor James Bennet ultimately resigned following outcry and the NYT apologized for the piece.
The NYT also publicly announced that Rubenstein edited Cotton’s article amid the backlash. The op-ed called for the U.S. military to be potentially deployed to “restore order” amid nationwide protests over the death of George Floyd. (RELATED: Tom Cotton: NYT Column Calling To Abolish Police ‘Puts Lives In Danger’)
Rubenstein departed from the newspaper this week, months after Cotton’s op-ed, The Daily Beast reported Friday. The resignation was announced “in an internal Slack channel for Times staffers on Thursday,” The Daily Beast added.
A spokesperson for the NYT previously said that the op-ed came about as a result of a “rushed editorial process” and “a leadership problem.”
Prior to Bennet’s resignation, he defended the piece and tried to explain that it is important to allow “counter-arguments” regarding issues. Bennet later backtracked and apologized to employees before resigning.
Bari Weiss, a former op-ed editor and writer for the NYT, detailed the internal “civil war” at the paper in her public resignation letter, which came shortly after the Cotton controversy. Weiss accused the NYT of “unlawful discrimination, hostile work environment, and constructive discharge.”
The Old Guard lives by a set of principles we can broadly call civil libertarianism. They assumed they shared that worldview with the young people they hired who called themselves liberals and progressives. But it was an incorrect assumption.
— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) June 4, 2020
“But the truth is that intellectual curiosity—let alone risk-taking—is now a liability at The Times,” Weiss wrote. “Why edit something challenging to our readers, or write something bold only to go through the numbing process of making it ideologically kosher, when we can assure ourselves of job security (and clicks) by publishing our 4000th op-ed arguing that Donald Trump is a unique danger to the country and the world? And so self-censorship has become the norm.”
The NYT did not respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller.